Talk about last minute gift ideas. In fact, if you buy gifts online, it will be too late to grab these, because it would take too long to ship them to you. As such, there are a number of prime releases as studios hope to attract last minute gift givers, but also a few that feel like they are being dumped here as an early Boxing Week sales. At the top of the list we have (500) Days of Summer on DVD or Blu-ray + Digital Copy and District 9 on Blu-ray. (The latter is also coming out on DVD, but the Blu-ray is by far the best deal.) Both are worthy of the DVD Pick of the Week. Meanwhile, if you are Canadian, or a fan of Canadian culture, grab Trailer Park Boys 2 - Countdown to Liquor Day on Blu-ray, which is the ever-popular DVD Puck of the Week.
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Sandra Bullock made three movies this year after not releasing a single film in 2008. It seems her absence made her fans grow fonder, as the first movie, The Proposal, became her highest grossing hit ever, while her third film, The Blind Side, is about to break that record. This week I'm reviewing neither of those movies, but All About Steve, a romantic comedy that was dumped into theaters on Labor Day long weekend, which is arguably the worst long weekend of the year when it comes to box office.
Despite earning abysmal reviews, the film still did well enough at the box office to be considered a midlevel hit, matching expectations (nearly) perfectly.
So there are some mixed signals here.
Given its reviews, it is highly unlikely the film will be good, but is it at least watchable, as its box office performance suggests?
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The first official weekend of Autumn was not great at the box office, as every single new release missed expectations, some by small margins, others quite dramatically.
This was enough to push the total box office down to $92 million, off 6.7% from last weekend and 8.7% lower than the same weekend last year.
Year-to-date, 2009 is still up on 2008 by a significant margin, leading $7.53 billion to $7.00 billion.
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Not a single film reached the $10,000 mark on the per theater chart this weekend.
In fact, there weren't even any films that came close.
The best movie overall was The September Issue with an average of just $7,303, which was one fifth of its opening per theater average.
Granted it did triple its theater count this past weekend, so a decline in its per theater average was expected, but it also saw its overall box office fall by a third.
The best new release of the week was All About Steve, which was only halfway there at $4,994.
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Labor Day long weekend is over and, as we already knew, the summer of 2009 set records.
Over the summer months, the box office earned $4.31 billion, which was well ahead of 2007's previous record of $4.16 billion.
Granted, as mentioned before, this summer not only had two years of inflation, but also one additional weekend.
Even so, there's a lot to cheer about.
This past weekend, the industry pulled in $99 million over three days and $125 million over four.
This is a huge amount compared to same weekend last year; however, because summer lasted one week longer, this weekend last year was the weekend after the Labor Day long weekend, so the comparison falls apart.
Year-to-date, 2009 has earned $7.41 billion, which is 7.8% more than at the same point in 2008.
The lead in terms of raw dollars is more than $500 million, and it would take a massive collapse for this lead to evaporate.
Hopefully that will not happen, but given the performance of the three new releases this week, it is not impossible.
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The Final Destination pulled off an unlikely repeat win over Labor Day weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday.
The horror movie, which was considered only a marginal favorite to win last weekend, beat off modest openings for All About Steve and Gamer.
Destination's 3-day estimate is $12.435 million, with Steve second with $11.2 million and Gamer a disappointing fourth with $9 million.
Inglourious Basterds places third with $10.8 million.
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It's the final weekend of summer 2009, and already we've broken the record for the season.
The previous record was set in 2007 when the total summer box office was $4.16 billion.
In comparison, at the end of last weekend, 2009 had earned $4.17 billion and there's one more weekend to go.
Granted, 2009 is a rare year where the summer had 18 weekends instead of 17, and 2009 also has two years worth of inflation to help, but this is still worth celebrating.
Looking at the final weekend of the summer, we should end the season on a high note as this time last year was, well, terrible.
It would be nearly medically impossible for the summer to end weaker than last year, but there is a chance none of the three wide releases will come out on top, which would be a bit of a disappointing end.
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Summer ended on a strong note with three films from August that have the potential to cross $100 million at the box office. But I don't think there's a single film coming out this month that has the potential to do the same.
Then again, we're not concerned with keeping up with August, we are concerned with keeping up with September last year, and that will be an easier task most weeks.
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This week's round of new casting information contains updates for Gospel Hill, Sex and the City, The Six Wives of Henry Lefay, and more!
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The shaded area represents the expected performance range for a film, based on its opening weekend box office. 95% of films fall within the shaded area. If a film trends towards the top end of the shaded area, it has good legs compared to the average film; if it trends towards the bottom end of the shaded area, it has poor legs. The predictive area is based on movies from the past 5 years.

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